Case Number 18858

JADE WARRIOR

The Charge

"Tao minulle Sampo niin saat rakkaasi takaisin" = "Forge me
the Sampo and you will get your loved one back"

Opening Statement

Ever wonder what a Finnish wuxia film would look like? No? Well, that's too
bad because that's what we have on our hands with Jade Warrior.
Hopefully, I can do the film justice, but that will be a difficult task given
that I found the plot almost incomprehensible.

Facts of the Case

In modern day Finland lives Kai the blacksmith (Tommi Eronen). He's
apparently a poor blacksmith, having only gotten into the trade to impress his
girlfriend (Krista Kosonen). Berg (Markku Peltola, The Man Without A
Past), an antique dealer, is in possession of a mysterious iron container.
Berg believes there is a connection between Kai and the case and brings it to
the blacksmith. Kai is able to open the case, setting into motion a series of
revelations that connects the events in modern Finland with ancient China.

The Evidence

Iron boxes. A Chinese demon. A reincarnated warrior. The "Kalevala"
(an epic folklore poem of Finland). The "Sampo" (a mystical object
that grants happiness to the person who possesses it). The gates of hell. Green
CGI.

Jade Warrior brings all these disparate elements together to form a
twisted story that barely makes any sense. So, needless to say, things go awry
rather quickly in this bizarre little film. It all starts with the discovery
that Kai is the reincarnation of Sintai (also Eronen) a Finnish-Chinese (!?)
warrior from 2000 B.C. This finding sets up parallel storylines as the movie
begins flashing forwards and backwards in time. The purpose of this is to
explain some kind of legend. Unfortunately, it does not, especially when it
comes to making a coherent connection between Finnish and Chinese mythology.

Instead, the film presents a few derivative martial arts scenes and much
talk about the subtleties of iron forging. The fights in the ancient storyline
are low budget versions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the modern
storylines, it's discount Matrix fisticuffs. The character of Berg is
even dressed similar to Agent Smith. There are also a lot of shots of Kai
brooding over his fire pit, somehow producing objects from his locked-up
memories of a past life, such as a fan-like weapon and the Sampo, without any
type of design plan and, even more amazingly, without any type of mould. It
seems that he just has to blow some ashes away and things appear.

It all gets tedious and unfathomable within the first 30 minutes.

The performances are adequate. Eronen makes a good reluctant hero, although
his constantly gloomy countenance gets to be too much by the end. The rest of
the cast doesn't have much to do aside from shooting various glances to indicate
their state of mind.

The technical aspects are serviceable. The audio is strong, capturing all
dialogue, soundtrack and sound effects clearly. The video is similarly good for
the most part, except that some of CGI is definitely below Hollywood
quality.

The only extra of substance is a featurette on the film's digital effect,
featuring a talk with the CGI crew.